International monitors pull out of Russian poll

Russia and the West were headed for renewed confrontation last night after European observers announced that they would boycott next month's presidential election.

Europe's respected election watchdog took the almost unprecedented decision to abandon its mission after accusing the Kremlin of creating obstacles in an effort to render effective observation impossible.

With Kremlin critics disqualified from standing, the vote on March 2 is all but certain to rubber stamp Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, as the third post-Soviet president.

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Both the OSCE's election arm - the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), regarded as the world's most authoritative electoral watchdog - and its parliamentary assembly jointly announced that they would not send monitors.

"Right from the start ODIHR was not even trying to agree on mutually acceptable conditions for monitoring," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "We believe the actions of ODIHR are unacceptable."

The decision follows days of protracted negotiations. Russia had attempted to restrict the number of OSCE observers and said they would not be allowed to arrive until just days before the vote.

Under agreed guidelines signed by all members of the 56-nation organisation -including Russia - an advance team of observers normally arrives a month before the vote to ensure that campaigning follows internationally accepted procedure.

Although Russia made a minor concession, saying the advance team would be allowed in on February 20, ODIHR rejected the offer.

"We made every effort in good faith to deploy our mission," said ODIHR director Christian Strohal as the boycott was announced.

"The Russian Federation has created limitations that are not conducive to undertaking election observation."

ODIHR also boycotted parliamentary elections last December for the first time in Russia's post-Soviet history over similar disagreements.

Russia has long been at odds with the OSCE, arguing that it marks down former Soviet states in its reports while ignoring what it says are serious democratic abuses in western Europe.